Sam Maloof, whose simple, elegant wooden furniture, which he designed and made by hand, made him a central figure in the postwar American crafts movement, died at his home in Alta Loma. He was 93.

The death on May 21 was confirmed by Roslyn Bock, the business manager of Sam Maloof Woodworking.

Mr. Maloof, who was self-taught, developed a distinctive design aesthetic that blended traditional and modern styles in functional furniture; its sleek, curving, gently sculptural forms made him highly sought after by private clients and museum curators alike.

His signature piece, a rocking chair whose long, inward-pointing rockers vaguely resembled antelope horns, became part of the White House's arts and crafts collection after a donor gave one to Ronald Reagan, and his work is part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“The work is timeless,” said Jeremy Adamson, who organized an exhibition of Maloof's work for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2001. “He remained committed to values of craftsmanship and integrity that made him a beacon for woodworkers around the world. That furniture will last forever.”

Samuel Solomon Maloof was born in Chino, one of nine children of Lebanese immigrants. A woodworking enthusiast even as a child, he made his mother a broad spatula for turning bread and, more ingeniously, carved doll-house furniture, cars and a toy revolver with a spinning chamber.

After winning a poster contest in high school, he was hired to do graphic design work for a company that made air filters for heavy-duty internal combustion engines. He also did printing and poster work for the Padua Hills Theater in nearby Claremont and later went to work for a small industrial design company that built displays for Bullock's, the department store.

In 1941 he was drafted into the Army, for which he did engineering drawings of gun emplacements in the Aleutian Islands. After the war, he worked as an assistant to Millard Sheets, the head of the art department at Scripps College in Claremont. There he met Alfreda Ward, an art student, whom he married in 1948. She died in 1998. He is survived by their two children, Samuel W. Maloof of Mentone and Marilou Delancey of Alta Loma; his wife, Beverly Wingate; a stepson, Todd Wingate; and four grandchildren.

For the house he bought in Ontario, Mr. Maloof made furniture out of discarded oak planks from dismantled packing crates and plywood sheets. In 1951 Better Homes and Gardens devoted a feature article to his do-it-yourself designs, and some furniture he made for a ranch-style house in West Covina came to the attention of the Los Angeles Times, which featured it in its Sunday home-design magazine.

That year, the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss commissioned him to furnish Dreyfuss' new home and office in Pasadena.

“I was working out of a one-car garage,” Mr. Maloof told The New York Times in 2001. “I didn't have power tools – nothing. He called and said, 'You don't know who I am, but I know who you are.' I just about collapsed.” Mr. Maloof designed and made 25 pieces for Dreyfuss, for a grand total of $1,800.